A speakerphone is a telephonic device that allows a group of people on one end of a phone connection (the “speakerphone” end) to participate in a conversation with one or more people at another end (the “far” end) of the connection. The speakerphone may include a sound field capture system and a sound field rendering system. The capture system consists of a set of microphones, which capture and convert the voices at the speakerphone end of the connection into electronic signals for transmission to the far end of the connection. The rendering system consists of a set of speakers for broadcasting the voice or voices from the far end of the connection to participants at the speakerphone end. In order to more evenly capture and broadcast sound throughout a room, the microphone and speaker transducers may be arranged in a circular array. The circular configuration may also be used to capture and render spatial sound effects within the room.
In some instances, a speakerphone may include a visual indicator to show the status of a call. In one approach, the call status may be displayed on a display panel coupled to the speakerphone device. Generally, the display panel is a liquid crystal display (LCD) located on one side of the speakerphone device below the microphone and speaker transducer arrays. Due to the nature and location of the display panel, the call status may be difficult to view from all but a narrow range of azimuths and altitudes.
In another approach, a colored light may be used to indicate whether the speakerphone is on-call or the microphone is muted. For example, a point-source emitter may be placed along the central axis of the speakerphone device. This approach may increase the visibility of a visual indicator. However, it has the potential of having the indicator light and/or the indicator light's support structure occlude the microphone transducer arrays in the center of the speakerphone.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section. Similarly, issues identified with respect to one or more approaches should not assume to have been recognized in any prior art on the basis of this section, unless otherwise indicated.